


Brain Phone and Biscuits

by Diary



Series: Tarly Flowers [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bechdel Test Fail, Dessert & Sweets, Disturbing Themes, Engagement, F/M, Family, Friends Become Romantic Partners, Gen, Jon Snow & Samwell Tarly Friendship, Jon Snow is a Stark, Late Night Conversations, Modern Westeros, POV Jon Snow, POV Male Character, Past Child Abuse, Past Incest, Past Rape/Non-con, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7171445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Sam and Gilly's developing relationship through Jon's eyes. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brain Phone and Biscuits

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

The smell of biscuits fills the air, and Pyp nudges Jon.

Trying not to smile, Jon orders, “Quiet.”

Sure enough, Gilly Flowers soon appears with a covered baking sheet in hand. Giving them a tentative smile, she says, “Hello. Good night, tonight. Would you like some biscuits? They’re for Sam. Is he here? And not busy doing anything important?”

Forcibly turning Pyp away and pressing a hand against his (Pyp's) mouth, Jon shoves him in the general direction of the bathrooms, smiles, and comes around the desk. “He’s here and not too busy. What kind are they tonight?”

“Orange,” she earnestly tells him. “The baby wanted oranges, and the- the- brain phone told me that biscuits could be made with orange peels and juice.”

“Smartphone,” he gently corrects. “And how’s the baby doing?”

“Good,” she answers. “The- doctor says that he’s going to come soon. But most of the flower names I’ve found sound like they’re more fit for girls.”

Jon briefly considers saying something but quickly decides letting Sam handle this would be best.

He swipes his card to the forensic lab and leads her to Sam’s office.

Opening on the first knock, Sam smiles at her, and Jon’s glad he doesn’t have to describe the look out loud. Sam’s usual grin is kind and playful, but when he smiles at Gilly, there’s really no better way to describe it than as sweet and warm.

“Gilly!” Sam reaches over and leads her to his chair. “Oh, those smell wonderful. Did you get the article I sent you?”

“Over the electronic posting mail? Yes, yes, I did,” she answers. “I opened it all by myself, too, and I could read some of the words without the brain- smartphone reading it for me.”

“That’s wonderful,” Sam enthuses.

Jon walks away.

…

After Gilly leaves, Sam brings some of the biscuits over, and while the others are squabbling over them, Jon asks, “She’s really doing okay?”

“She is,” Sam confirms. “Careful, though, there might be a baby Jon soon.”

“You mean she won’t come in carrying a full baby flower soon,” he teases.

Sam sighs, and Jon pats his shoulder.

When Gilly had been rescued, they’d followed procedure and marked her down as Snow, but Sam had been Sam and talked to her about gillyflowers. In response, she’d decided her full name would be Gilly Flowers.

“The doctors say that the baby is healthy and shouldn’t face any problems after the birth. Things are going well at the café, and Shireen, a volunteer at the group home, she’s been helping with her classes. She really is going to be okay,” Sam says with painfully bright eyes.

“Yes,” Jon agrees.

Aside from struggling with the physical training, Sam’s biggest obstacle to becoming an officer of the City Watch is he’s the type who would get emotionally attached to every victim. It’d take no time at all before he burnt out.

Jon had managed to convince him to go into forensics, and Sam had found he had a special knack when it came to computers.

Somehow, though, Sam and Gilly had been near one another at the right time, and if Jon was afraid Gilly and her baby wouldn’t be okay, he’d be terrified for Sam. Thankfully, he knows, as Sam says, she really is going to be okay, and so will her baby.

…

Sam rushes out of the lab and practically squawks, “Jon!”

“Sam?” He comes around the desk. “What is it?”

“Get someone to cover your duty tonight! The baby- Gilly just texted me, only, she actually texted me an hour and thirty-four minutes ago, I told her, it’s best to call, texts sometimes- why aren’t you getting ready!”

Reaching over, Jon pinches his ear.

Sam swats at him. “Hey!”

“Now that you’re a little calmer, do you want to try explaining what’s going on and how I can help?”

“Hospital,” Sam says. “For the baby. Gilly’s water broke, and if she’d called instead of texting, I could have kept my promise and been there for the birth! But I still need to get there, now, and I can’t drive in this state, and also, she might throw things at me, but she probably won’t if you’re standing in front of me.”

He looks at Jon expectantly and literally bounces in place.

…

After Jon uses his badge to get them into Gilly’s ward, Sam rushes over to her.

“Sam.” She reaches out.

Jon takes a calming breath and pulls the curtain around them before anyone else in the ward can say anything.

Gilly doesn’t look as bad as when he first came across her, but she looks- Despite her swollen belly, she’s so small in the hospital cot, her hair is plastered to her sweat-covered forehead, and under the glaring lights, she looks paler than normal.

“It’s alright,” Sam soothes. Sitting down, he kisses her hand. “I’m here. The baby can come whenever you and he are ready.”

“I was making you more biscuits,” she tells him. “Chocolate orange dates, only with peanuts instead of cashews. I dropped the vanilla bottle on the floor.”

“That’s okay,” Sam assures her. “It was only an accident. Everyone has them sometimes. Hey, did you know that there are cashew apples?”

There’s this look Gilly sometimes gives Sam. It’s clear, if anyone else said something, she wouldn’t believe them, but because it’s him, she’ll believe it, no matter how incredulous it sounds to her.

“There is,” Sam says. “Did they let you bring your phone in?”

She points to her purse on the floor.

Sam hands it to her, and while they’re looking up cashew apples and Sam is telling her about a time when he was little, Jon slips out to go find a nurse or doctor to talk to.

…

A year later, Jon is getting someone processed when he sees Gilly carrying baby Sam out of the lab and immediately knows something is wrong.

Waving Grenn to take over, he hurries over. “Gilly!”

Baby Sam smiles and waves at him.

Kissing the baby and tickling under his chin, he quietly asks, “What’s wrong?”

“You could have warned me,” she states with her chin slightly quavering. “You know how I feel.”

“Gilly, I need more information. Whatever’s upset you, I don’t think I know about it.”

Surprise crosses her face, and she says, “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. Sam has a date in the morning. She’s very pretty, according to him. And they met in one of his poetry classes.”

Gilly doesn’t like poetry, and no one is going to be shocked when Sam comes in and announces he’s finally up and took control of one or more of the classes K University offers on the subject.

Looking her in the eye, he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. If I had, I would have warned you.”

She nods and gives him a sad smile. “Thank you, Jon. Me and Sam had better get home.”

…

After his shift is over, Jon goes to Sam’s office and grabs a soda out of Sam’s mini-fridge. “Heard you had a date this morning.”

Sam excitedly nods. “Her name is-”

“What about Gilly?”

His face falling, Sam gives a small nod. “Right. Her. She didn’t seem too happy when I told her. But if things get serious between me and Nelsa, I think Gilly will really like-”

“Sam.”

Sighing, Sam gives him a hopeless look. “This can’t keep going on, Jon. I love her. I love her so much. And you know I do.”

“And you’d have to be a complete idiot not to see that she loves you back,” he points out.

“Of course, she does,” Sam says. “And we both know why.”

Jon wishes he knew what to say.

Officers aren’t supposed to get romantically involved with the victims of serious crimes the officer was assigned to. This likely applies to non-officers in the field.

Sam calls her beautiful, now, but he hadn’t seen a pretty girl back then or even a charming one with a good sense of humour or a clear sense of intelligence. He’d seen the same filthy, too-skinny, wild-haired nineteen-year-old everyone else had. She’d been almost like a rabbit, in Jon’s estimation, with how she’d scurried about, cringed away, and scrunched her nose.

Jon had called Sam in specifically because Sam had proven to be good with child victims, and no one had known for sure how old she actually was, but all he could see was a young girl.

Sam had been Sam and got her slowly, tentatively talking. They’d gotten her cleaned and soon found out about the baby. She’d locked herself in a closet until Sam had coaxed her out.

Her smartphone is something Sam had spent an ungodly amount of his own personal money on for her, and when everyone, including Jon, had expressed reservations about this, Sam had defended the necessity of his action.

_It’ll give her a sense of security. And it’ll help her with reading and writing. I’ve already put some of my audiobooks I think would be good for her on it, and once she learns how to position it properly to take pictures and videos and how to stop recording when she’s done making notes, that’ll help us to better understand her, too. I’ve read about this, and the newest smartphones truly are showing great promise in helping people with various disabilities and, in her case, unfortunate life circumstances. Oh, remind me, there are some songs I need to put on it, too. And don’t worry, I’ve made sure the family filters are on for when she goes online._

Jon can’t ignore these facts any more than Sam can’t, but he also can’t ignore all the times he’s seen and listened to them talking. Everything is so sweet and, lately, so easy between them, and-

“I haven’t asked lately, but it that social worker still coming around?”

Making an unhappy noise, Sam says, “She will until baby Sam’s two. I agree with Gilly, this is insulting. I know some parents do need it, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it doesn’t say necessarily anything bad about them, but Gilly is a naturally wonderful mother. Whenever she does need help, she always does the right things to get it. It’d be better for everyone if the time spent on them was spent on someone who actually needed it.”

“Oh!” Sam’s eyes light up. “Pictures. And videos, of course.”

“You know that I’ve already seen most of them, right,” Jon teases.

Whenever there’s a new picture or video of baby Sam, Sam will literally chase people down to make sure, just in case they didn’t get the email, they see it.

“I can’t believe how fast he’s growing. He’ll be in school soon.”

“Yeah,” Jon says. The realisation hits him. “I remember when Rickon was just a tiny baby, and now, he’ll be graduating soon. Sansa’s going to have her baby soon, and I keep expecting Arya to get dragged in to have her mouth washed when I read her emails. How does this happen?”

“I don’t know,” Sam sighs. Reaching for his own soda, he taps it against Jon’s. “But here’s to the future in them. May they all outlive us.”

“Cheers to that.” Jon raises his can and takes a sip.

…

Gilly storms out of the lab with a fussing baby Sam in tow.

Jon rushes over. “Gilly?”

“I’ll call you, later, Jon. Right now, the fighting’s upset Sam.” She bounces him and makes a shushing noise. “We’ll get some oranges, alright, sweet one? And if you want, you can talk to Uncle Sam on the brain phone later. No one’s upset with you, I promise. This is just something between the grownups.”

Sam settles, and Jon wordlessly moves aside.

When he goes into Sam’s office, Sam gives him a tired look. “Did she tell you?”

“No.” He sits down.

“You know that big donation Gilly got on Kickstarter?”

Realisation hits. “Sam. No.”

Sam gives a sheepish shrug.

“Sam.”

“She deserves to have her bakery, now.”

“But she told you not to get involved.”

“Well, I told her not to get involved when that idiot professor gave me a failing grade, and look at how well she listened.”

Jon can’t exactly argue, especially with how close he came to having no choice but to arrest her, but- “You know why she feels this way.”

“I don’t care,” Sam says. “I mean, I do, but- She loves baking, Jon. If she could just get enough to buy it with Hot Pie, they’d do wonderfully. Think of how popular little Sam will be in school, having a mum who owns a bakery. Well, technically, co-owns, but that’s not an important distinction to little kids.”

“And where did the money come from?”

Sam sighs and stays quiet. Finally, he admits, “The emerald necklace.”

Randyll Tarly has made it clear Sam isn’t and won’t ever be in his will. His other son and his daughters will get everything.

Sam’s mother, on the other hand, had specifically left everything in her possession, with the exception of her clothes and shoes, to Sam.

For his part, Sam has never begrudged his siblings, and when Tarly challenged his dead wife’s will, Sam had been tempted to give up his claim. Eventually, he hadn’t, and Tarly backed down.

Sam had signed over their mother’s horses to his sisters, sold a few small pieces of her jewellery to set up a small trust fund for his brother, and has refused to sell anymore. He lives off the paycheque he makes from his job and some freelance computer work he does on the side.

Not knowing what to say, Jon simply squeezes his shoulder. “I better get back, but I’m here if you need me, okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

…

A few months after Gilly and Hot Pie have the bakery up and running, Little Sam runs out of the lab, sees Jon, and climbs up onto the desk. “I’m going to be a Tarly Flower!”

Before Jon can process this, Sam and Gilly appear, and he immediately sees the emerald-and-onyx ring on her left ring finger.

Sam hurries over with her hand in his and gives him a huge grin with soft, almost sparkling eyes.

Jumping up, Jon tightly hugs him. Cupping his head, he whispers, “Congratulations.”

Sam almost squeezes the breath out of him. “Thank you.”

When they let go and Sam picks up Little Sam, Jon kisses Gilly’s cheek. “Congratulations.”

She squeezes his hand. “Thank you. For everything, not just this.”

“You’ll be best man, of course, won’t you,” Sam asks.

“I’d never speak to you again if I weren’t,” he answers.

“Uncle Hot Pie is going to make, Mummy, Uncle Sam, what are those cupcakes called with…”

…

_Past_

Jon sighed and kneeled down in the cramped basement.

The feral woman looked at him with scared, tentative eyes and scrunched her nose.

Looking to make sure no one was nearby, he quietly said, “Your father made his own death necessary. It didn't have to be like this, but he was going to hurt us if we didn’t stop him. Whoever managed to contact us, you can’t ever blame them for his death. You can blame us, him, anyone but that person. They were right to get you help. Do you understand?”

She gave a slight, jerky nod.

“Good. Now, I understand you’re scared. That’s okay. A friend of mine is coming. He’s not a Gold Cloak like me. He’s just a friend. You don’t have to talk to him, but he’s going to talk to you. That’s part of what he does. He talks to people.”

His radio beeped. “That’ll be him. Stay?”

Another jerky nod was his answer.

Jon went, made sure Sam didn’t see the dead body, and brought him down to the basement.

“Hello,” Sam gently said. “I’m Samwell Tarly. Everyone calls me Sam.” Sitting down across from her, he dug out his phone. “Do you know much about mobiles? This one is really old, but my mum gave it to me. Here’s a picture of her.”

The girl’s face made it clear she didn’t understand, and she jerked when Sam turned the screen.

“It’s okay,” Sam told her. “There’s a phone upstairs, with the cord? Do you understand? Have you ever used it?”

Jon cleared his throat.

Sam looked over, and Jon simply nodded and gave him a look he hoped Sam would interpret as ‘move on’.

Thankfully, Sam did, and looking back at the girl, he continued, “Well, this is like that, but it doesn’t always need a cord. And it can do more than just let people talk to each other. See, mobiles came around in the…”

Jon went upstairs, and when he was finished, he went back down to find Sam and the girl sitting next to one another and looking at something on the phone.

Seeing him, Sam said, “And this is Officer Jon Stark. His brothers and sisters are all Tully-Stark. Their mum isn’t his. Will you tell him your name for me?”

Hesitantly, the girl said almost too quietly to hear, “I’m Gilly.”

Somehow, Jon knew then this girl would be okay, and he sent up a prayer of thanks for Sam.  


End file.
